


I Trudge the Warrior's Path

by RationsandSpades



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (She-Ra), Catra reflects on her life, I wanted to make this sadder, It's kind of sad, POV Catra (She-Ra), Potentially might write more but don't count on it, Therapy Cat Melog (She-Ra), no thoughts head empty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 10:59:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30104904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RationsandSpades/pseuds/RationsandSpades
Summary: Even after months of living in Bright Moon, Catra still doesn't feel safe. She doesn't believe she ever will.Night terrors and nightmares plague her every night, trauma having taken her by the throat. She's tired.So she reflects.A story of Catra reflecting at 4 in the morning, wondering what she did to ever deserve to be happy.
Kudos: 10





	I Trudge the Warrior's Path

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! Thanks for checking this out! I got the motivation to write again suddenly after having finished up my courses for this term. I'm tired, and I relate to Catra a lot. A lot of these things are things that have happened to me that I wanted to sort of project onto her. I hope it turned out well.  
> Thank you.

What was safety?

What did it feel like?

She didn’t know.

All she knew was anger, anger and the flames of today.

But the flames of tomorrow outsped the fires of today. They burned, burned, burned, destroying all in its path.

She was cold today.

She curled up in the bed, her tail wrapped tightly around her calf. She held her arms, feeling somehow naked in the cold room despite being covered in blankets that cushioned her body. They held her gently, each one a promise of safety and protection and peace.

Her eyes scanned the room.

She  _ was  _ safe. Safe here in Bright Moon.

Yet…

She shut her eyes and her mind flashed with  _ his  _ face. She saw the pool around her, the green water full of electricity and pain pulsing through her body. She heard the chanting, the sounds of clones saying the same words.

_ Cast out the shadows. _

_ Cast out the shadows! _

**_Cast out the shadows!_ **

**_CAST OUT THE SHADOWS!_ **

She opened her eyes.

They went away.

She sighed and curled up tighter, feeling so alone here. Why didn’t she want to sleep with Adora this time? Why was she refusing so fervently and with the stubbornness, the determination, steadfast and set in her ways like that of a bull?

_ The night terrors. _

The night terrors had lead to her kicking and punching Adora so hard that she had scrambled off the bed when Adora had woken her up. She had slept on the floor, bruised, battered, beaten, exhausted.

She looked over to see Melog stirring. They looked distressed, kicking and growling softly in their sleep.

She let out a breath and looked over at the wall of her room again. The sounds of the waterfall could have lulled her to sleep.

Could have.

She thought.

That’s all she wanted to do right now instead of sleep.

So she did.

She held herself, holding her tail as she would in her kittenhood. It provided a sense of comfort to her. She stroked its tip.

Numb.

She let out a breath, then another. Her tail flicked at the base. She attempted to flick the very tip.

It stayed still, limp, as always.

She flexed and tensed along her tail until she couldn’t feel it anymore. It was about an inch from the very tip that she noticed she couldn’t move it, couldn’t flex it.

She ran a finger pad along the tip and ran it along her cheek, feeling the softness of it against her cheek.

The flames of tomorrow kept burning.

Fear, anger, terror so strong.

All she had had were nightmares, night terrors, ones that made her wake up with a shout or flail and thrash in her sleep. She had the kinds where she would wake up punching the air, clawing at the blankets until they were destroyed at the ends.

How many days?

How many days had this been going for, now?

She had lost count, only remembering to recount on the sixth day when she had woken up Adora with a solid kick to the leg and a scratch to her face.

She had retreated to her room, refused to leave it.

She didn’t want to hurt anyone. She never wanted to. What kind of a monster was she?

The kind that kills their friend’s mother, the kind that tries to destroy reality, the kind that risked the entirety of Etheria all for the sake of proving that she was somehow better than her.

Than Adora.

She had to prove she was better than her.

All her life, treated like garbage.

She ran a finger along the branching scars that crisscrossed her arms, her sides, her chest. The ones that Shadow Weaver had inflicted upon her.

That one, she was five. She had won a race against Adora. She had been ecstatic, so had Adora. They both were.

Shadow Weaver hadn’t been.

The scar along her side, a starburst that branched out in zig-zagged, angry lines.

That one was from when she had gotten a little too excited once. She had been playing with Adora in the Fright Zone. Shadow Weaver had investigated since they were being just a bit too loud, laughing a bit too hard, having a bit too much fun. She remembered she had been playing tag with Adora, just chasing after her and running away when Adora was tagged. So slow, so slow, so slow…

Shadow Weaver had caught her in a blast that ricocheted off her side, sparking so painfully that she swore she had burnt her skin off that day.

Another was on the nape of her neck. It marked where her chip from Prime had been. She wasn’t the only one that had one ever since Entrapta removed her and Spinnerella’s chips.

The other, a scar on her arm.

That…

That one wasn’t from Shadow Weaver, from anybody but herself.

It was just one though, not as bad as some of the others she had known. The ones that had jumped into the incinerator, gotten killed in combat, the ones that were nothing but purple and cold as ice.

She remembered Shadow Weaver ordering her to clean up a body once. She remembered the bloodied, bulging eyes, the coldness of the body, how purple they were…

She let out a breath and looked at the moonlight filtering through the balcony door.

Under the blankets, in her den, she was safe.

Perhaps. Maybe, she was.

She didn’t know what safety was, though.

She looked inside herself, seeing nothing but emptiness, cold and angry and harsh. All she saw was the pain she inflicted, the pain she felt. She looked inside herself and all she could find was regret, anger, agony.

She scurried further under the blankets.

It was warm under here. It was warm and it smelled of home and her own scent. It wasn’t as comforting as Adora’s, but at least without her there Adora was safe. Adora wouldn’t be safe from her own nightmares, her own fights and thrashes and punches in the air. She was safe from Catra, though. She was safe from her killing talons and her sharp teeth that had once buried themselves into Adora’s arm when she had a bad nightmare about fighting somebody in the war. Yes, she would rely on the weaponry that the Horde provided a majority of the time, but the other times, she would need to use her own.

She always had to improvise, always had to make do, prove herself somehow. What she didn’t have in strength, she at least had in her claws and her fangs and her biting attitude. The one that kept her safe, the one that protected her from danger, the one that made her almost kill people during a three-year-long war.

She curled up again and shut her eyes. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and held her tail curled up around her wrist like a bracelet. She rubbed the pads on her hands, feeling their roughness from years, decades, of running around on all fours and fighting.

Ever since coming to Bright Moon, she would rub lotion on, massage, her pads. It gave her some sense of comfort even if it provided some sort of pain when she had to run around on all fours again after having moisturized and taken care of them for a while. They’d crack sometimes and she’d be left in pain for a couple of weeks while they healed up. She’d wrap them in bandages, walk around on her feet and not both hands and feet.

It was a comfort to feel them when they were softer. It was a sign, almost, that maybe something would be better. Maybe she’d feel better soon.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a pawing weight on her shoulder.

“What’s up?” she mumbled.

She uncovered her head at the lack of sounds and saw Melog staring at her. They gave a small rumble of a purr and nuzzled her cheek. She scratched their chin and listened to them purr. “What are you doing awake? Isn’t it late?” she asked. Her voice was soft, gentle, something that Adora said she had recently taken up around a month ago. She had been in Bright Moon for almost four months now, almost four months of safety.

She scratched Melog’s chin and gently nuzzled their cheek with her own. Their purrs both filled the room. She found herself stroking their soft fur in silence.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Melog said with a meow.

“Thanks, bud,” Catra said, “I’m okay.

Melog looked at her with narrowed eyes.

Catra pressed her forehead into their neck fur and shut her eyes, “I’ve been having nightmares. Night terrors every night. I’m so tired, Melog. I’m so tired. What do I do?”  
  
They didn’t respond but gently licked her hair.

She wrapped her arms around their neck and hugged them tightly. They walked closer and sat beside her bed. She rubbed her face into their fur and took shaky breaths, comforting herself in their smell. “I want to sleep. I’m so tired. What do I do? How do I apologize if nobody’ll believe me?” she asked.

“Start small. You’re already doing so good,” Melog meowed softly. They perked their ears and tensed up in the neck. “Somebody’s outside the door.”

Catra cursed under her breath and looked over.

A knock. “Catra?”  
  
She stayed quiet.  
  
“Are you in there? I wanted to make sure you were okay. I know you haven’t been sleeping well and you haven’t been running around like you usually do,” Adora said quietly outside of the door. Her voice was muffled but it sounded like she was right outside.

Could she not sleep either?  
  
Catra checked the time.

4 am.

She curled up under the blankets again, Melog jumping onto the bed and curling up next to her. She shut her eyes and tried to sleep again.

Adora didn’t say anything, her footsteps retreating.

She needed to think tonight, just to reflect.

Sometimes she just needed to think over her life, reflect on what she’d done. Maybe it wasn’t healthy to ruminate, to think about these kinds of things, but she did it anyway. She didn’t care.

Besides, it helped her sort out her thoughts.

Melog’s purring grew louder as she gently stroked their head, scratching their chin and cheek. She knew she at least liked to be pet on her head, but Melog seemed to like chin and cheek scratches instead. It made sense, considering they were far more feline than she was. She continued to pet the alien cat, wondering what kinds of magic they could do.

“You seem more relaxed,” Melog said.

“Yeah, I am. Thanks.” She continued to scratch their cheek. Melog’s tail started to thrash a little bit and she stopped.

“Why’d you stop?”

“Your tail was thrashing around. I don’t want you to scratch me again,” Catra said. She lay down beside them and stared at the ceiling. “Do you think Adora loves me? Even after everything I did to her?” she asked.

“Based on her pheromones, yes.”  
  
Catra chuckled and bumped her head against their neck again. She wanted to make sure that there was a group scent. She wanted to make sure they felt like they belonged at least.

Melog rested their head on Catra’s chest. It was rather heavy.

“She loves you. I can tell that from afar. You don’t see the way she looks at you when you aren’t looking at her,” Melog said with a trill. “It’s silly to see you two interact with one another. You’re very affectionate.”  
  
“How much have you been spying on me?” Catra asked, narrowing her eyes.

Melog sniffed the air. “You two mated the other day in this room.”  
  
Catra’s cheeks heated up a bit and she laughed, “Yeah, we did.”

“I can smell it.”  
  
“Okay, too much.” She rolled over so she had her body facing the alien cat. She curled up and held her tail again. It brought her a sense of comfort still, its fur not as bristled as it was earlier. She shut her eyes again and took a deep breath as she had seen Perfuma do.

“Maybe I should take up Perfuma’s offer,” she said.

She’d been thinking about it for some time. The thought of working on this, all of this, hurt and scared her, but how else was she going to get better? Things were getting worse, her night terrors causing physical pain now. What was she supposed to do other than get help for this?  
  
The flames in her heart turned to embers now. They relaxed, died down slightly, faded, and turned to ashes. For now, she was calm. She didn’t know what tomorrow would bring.

But that was tomorrow.

And tomorrow was a new day.

She took another breath and shut her eyes, relaxed her body, and tried to sleep.

Tomorrow was a new day.

Tomorrow was a new day.

She was safe.

She’d be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, there.  
> I really appreciate you reading this. Tell me what you thought of it if you want, yeah? I hope it wasn't too much to handle. I know it was kind of sad but I didn't intend on it having a real plotline or anything. I just wanted to write something for fun. Hope it turned out alright. I might write more chapters, but this won't be about anyone else but Catra. I don't intend on writing from anyone else's POV right now.


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